Returning to Ho Chi Minh City after a decade, the 24th Vietnam Film Festival has therefore become more interested than ever by filmmakers, experts and cinema-loving audiences.
The race to the Golden Lotus has therefore become more intense and fierce as in the list of nominees for the feature film category, the 16 participating works mostly come from the most prestigious directors of Vietnamese cinema today.
In there, Red Rain and Tomorrow considered as fierce rivals in the race to win the most important award. Finally, Dang Thai Huyen's revolutionary war film won, amid the applause of guests, filmmakers and generations of actors present at the ceremony.
Tran Thanh, once again missed the opportunity to win the golden cup at the most important film award, after about 5 years behind the camera with 4 hundred billion works.
Red rain 'defeats' Mai
In the 16 works competing for the Golden Lotus award in the feature film category, Tran Thanh has two films participating, including Tomorrow and The Four Guardians . These are two projects released during the Lunar New Year every year and recorded enviable box office figures. Among them, Tomorrow (2024) revenue 551 billion VND , is the second most successful work in the history of Vietnamese cinema. The Four Panthers (2025) also helps Tran Thanh pocket more money 330 billion VND .
Tran Thanh entered the competition for the trophy with an initial advantage in numbers. However, the opposite situation occurred when both of the director's works were not announced for the Golden Lotus and Silver Lotus awards.
The Four Panthers did not even appear on the final nomination list.
Accordingly, the cinematographic works include Red Rain (Dang Thai Huyen), Take mother away (Mo Hong Jin), Death Battle in the Air (Ham Tran), Tunnels (Bui Thac Chuyen), Detective Kien (Victor Vu) and Tomorrow (Tran Thanh) are the names chosen by the jury from 16 works. The common point of these projects is that they all have revenue of over 150 billion VND and received positive feedback from experts and audiences upon its release.
However, according to the jury of the Vietnam Film Festival, the selection of a film for the Lotus Award does not depend entirely on its box office performance. Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Ta Quang Dong, head of the Film Festival Steering Committee, emphasized that the judges base their evaluation on many criteria such as the quality of the work, art, public, and time.
Finally, the Silver Lotus award was given to Tunnel, Death Battle in the Air and Sister-in-law . This is also the first time this award has had 3 works honored at the same time. Meanwhile, Red Rain won the Golden Lotus Award.
Victory of Red Rain not surprising. Even before the award ceremony, Dang Thai Huyen's brainchild was predicted by experts and filmmakers to win the highest award. In addition, Red Rain The jury also highly appreciated him in several other categories such as design artist, cinematography and best supporting actor (Phuong Nam).
Released on the occasion of National Day September 2nd, Red Rain created an unprecedented phenomenon in the Vietnamese film market. The work topped the box office chart for a consecutive month and created records outside the box office. The film attracted 8.1 million viewers nationwide and reached a milestone of more than 715 billion VND , is the highest-grossing Vietnamese film in history. From the time the film was shown until the end of its journey in theaters, Red Rain always become the center of discussion of experts and movie lovers. With its stature, level of investment, "huge" scale and rare spread, Red Rain Deserves to be the blockbuster war film of Vietnamese cinema in the past decade.
Not only that, Dang Thai Huyen's film continues its new and further journey as the project chosen by the Ministry of Culture to represent Vietnam in the preliminary selection at the 98th Oscars in the category of Best International Feature Film.
The reason Tran Thanh lost the battle
In terms of scale, investment level, effect, influence and spread, Tomorrow from Tran Thanh is somewhat inferior when compared to Red Rain . Mai's story is simple, revolving around the love between Mai (Phuong Anh Dao) and Sau (Tuan Tran) along with family conflicts and generation gaps. The filming scene mainly takes place in an old apartment building in Ho Chi Minh City. It cannot be denied that Tran Thanh has made progress in terms of technique and editing style, but the work still reveals some limitations in both script and storytelling. In many scenes, the director appears greedy, embracing many details, and showing off techniques, making the experience Tomorrow not really complete on screen.
While The Four Panthers This is another step back for Tran Thanh in the film industry. When he just made his mark with Mai , a work released on the occasion of Lunar New Year 2025, was criticized for its quality. The film's script lacked investment, was somewhat superficial, and sometimes indulged in nonsense comedy. As the film progressed, it became weaker and more chaotic in its storytelling and message delivery. Moreover, Tran Thanh's perspective on love and marriage among the younger generation also lacked novelty and uniqueness.
That may be the reason why even though he participated in the competition, The Four Panthers did not appear in the final nomination list.
At this year's Film Festival, in addition to Tomorrow and The Four Panthers Not being honored, Tran Thanh himself also missed the opportunity to win another important award - excellent director. In this nomination list were other directors such as Ham Tran, Dang Thai Huyen, Khuong Ngoc. In the end, Ham Tran won the gold cup.
In about 5 years behind the camera, Tran Thanh owns 4 works including The Godfather, Mrs. Nu's House, Mai and Avengers Quartet . The director's total box office revenue exceeds 1,800 billion VND . However, at the Vietnam Film Festivals, the director's above projects have never been honored with the highest award. The best achievement is Godfather with the Silver Lotus at the 22nd Vietnam Film Festival. At this event, Tran Thanh played the role of co-director with Vu Ngoc Dang.
Tran Thanh himself has not yet touched the golden cup for director. However, the success of Tomorrow also helped the film's cast shine. In particular, Phuong Anh Dao was honored in the category of Best Actress and Hong Dao received the gold cup for Best Supporting Actress at this year's Vietnam Film Festival.
Source: https://baoquangninh.vn/vi-sao-dao-dien-nghin-ty-tran-thanh-thua-cuoc-3386439.html
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